Now, I understand the concept of wireless power (which can serious effects on your health). But using WiFi to gather enough energy to charge a PSP or iPhone. That’s something I’d laugh at. However, we’ll find out this summer. RCA displayed their Airnergy Charger at CES this year.

“The Airnergy Charger is amazing. This little box has, inside it, some kind of circuitry that harvests WiFi energy out of the air and converts it into electricity. This has been done before, but the Airnergy is able to harvest electricity with a high enough efficiency to make it practically useful: on the CES floor, they were able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes, using nothing but ambient WiFi signals as a power source.”

Well, there are a couple factors at work here that make me want to believe that this works:

1. It’s backed by a brand name company, and it already has a price.

2. This technology has already been around (according to SlashDot), but it hasn’t been effective enough to charge anything good. Charged a BlackBerry from 30% to full in 90 mins.

If it does work, who know where our technology could go from there? This actually makes me want to ask a question. Where do you think this technology could go, if it indeed works?

3 Responses

The 90 minute charge was off its internal battery. The laws of physics say this device cannot possibly work.

With 100% efficiency, and you literally surrounded by WiFi devices transmitting all the time at the maximum legal power on all legal frequencies, you can capture about 5mW. That would charge a BlackBerry in about a month.

Under realistic conditions, it would take you about 100 years to capture the amount of energy needed to manufacture the device in the first place.

Shame on RCA for peddling snake oil and shame on the media for falling for it.

You have a point there. I just now come to think of it. WiFi signals are often divided (shared) between multiple products. Like for example, when everyone and everything in the house is using the wifi, I find the signal noticeably diminishes. So, you bring up a point. It’s rare that a WiFi signal isn’t being used. I think that it would take much longer to charge the battery pack. And after that, you’ve got to charge the phone, etc.